OSM with Mapserver and Postgis

Hi,
I’m new to the world of OSM and want to use it with UMN MapServer and PostgreSQL / PostGIS.
I already have successfully rendered data with the instructions on the homepage of UMN (http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/wiki/RenderingOsmData) . I’m missing here the complex definition for points of interest.
My questions:
1st Are there any further guidance / mapfiles that I could use as a basis for a project based on UMN Mapserver?
2nd Is it posible to extract directly PostgreSQL - data from a particular area from the total database?
All of my created / changed mapfile and symbol definitions and I would provide the general public.
Thank you + greeting
Sven

Hi,

Mapserver is not so popular among OSM folks. Somebody had a quick trial five years ago, was not happy with it and wrote into OSM wiki that Mapserver is not good. Since that it has been the official truth.

What do you mean by “I’m missing here the complex definition for points of interest”? Give some example of POIs you would like to see on a map and I can make write a new simple LAYER for you.

Hi,

Mapserver is a very good openSource software and there is no problem to use it with postgis and OSM. You can use it as OGC Server and Client (WMS, WFS) too. For example please check the example on this site:

http://www.mapserver.org/

http://osmwms.itc-halle.de/

Where can I find / download symbols as bitmap (i.e. .png) for all points of interest with a list for the entries in the column amenity in table planet_osm_point?

Thank you
Sven

Hi,

You can start with Mapnik symbols from http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/rendering/mapnik/symbols/ or try to find other free symbols from the net or draw your own ones.